Who pays for the sewer lateral in Elk Grove, CA
Which part of the pipe is yours
Yours from the cleanout to your building — if certain conditions are met
Why, and what to do
If something’s wrong
Who to call first about the sewer lateral
The answer here has conditions, so it is not repeated in brief. Read who to call first, in full or look up your address.
Elk Grove: official site(opens in a new tab)If a repair needs a permit or an inspection
- Who issues it:
- City of Elk Grove, through the Public Works Director
- What it covers:
- laying or maintaining a pipe in a street or right-of-way, and any excavation or cut in one
The District that owns the lower lateral issues no permit for repairing the upper one - it hands that to the city. Its own ordinance says so: "the local jurisdictions are responsible for inspecting the upper lateral and building sewer", and their construction "shall conform to applicable building and plumbing codes". Elk Grove's permit is section 12.08.020: "it is unlawful for any person to lay, construct or maintain any pipes, drain, or conduit across, along or on any street, road, highway, drainage feature or other public right-of-way in the City, or to make any excavation or cut or obstruction therein, without first obtaining an encroachment permit from the Director".
Who is responsible for which part
Who to call first
Sacramento Area Sewer District (SacSewer)
What happens: crews inspect the problem; SacSewer repairs its portion of the pipe at no cost
Elk Grove's own code answers nothing about sewer laterals - its Title 15, "Water and Sewers", is storm drainage and stormwater only. The answer is Sacramento Area Sewer District's, and it keeps part of the pipe. The District "owns and maintains the lower lateral portion of the pipe that begins at some point in the sewer or public utility easement or public right-of-way", and the customer holds the upper lateral - defined as the "portion of the sewer lateral from the SacSewer sewer cleanout to the limits of the building plumbing", which "is the responsibility of the property owner to maintain". Where the two meet is usually a cleanout, and the District says plainly that "this point varies from property to property".
- Elk Grove
- The lower lateral - the length nearest the main - and it owns that length as well as maintaining it. The District's ordinance provides that where it owns the main line it "is responsible for clearing stoppages and for inspecting, maintaining, and repairing the lower lateral, SacSewer cleanouts, manholes and main line", and adds the converse: where it does not own the main or manhole, it "has no responsibility for clearing stoppages or for inspecting, maintaining, or repairing the main line, cleanouts, or lower laterals".
- The property owner
- The upper lateral, from the cleanout back to the building. The District requires the owner to keep it "free from pipe-blocking substances that may impede the flow", its pipes and joints "tight, sound, and free from structural defects (such as cracks, breaks, and missing portions)", and no stormwater drains connected to it. Section 7.9 adds a duty that arrives with the work rather than with the property: the user is responsible for constructing a SacSewer cleanout, and for its cost, on "the replacement of more than 10 feet of the existing upper lateral by the user or parcel owner".
What decides which applies
Sources
Sacramento Area Sewer District, Sewer Ordinance SDI-0079, adopted 27 April 2022 and effective 27 May 2022 by its own cover pageWhat is required
- Who issues it:
- City of Elk Grove, through the Public Works Director
- What it covers:
- laying or maintaining a pipe in a street or right-of-way, and any excavation or cut in one
The District that owns the lower lateral issues no permit for repairing the upper one - it hands that to the city. Its own ordinance says so: "the local jurisdictions are responsible for inspecting the upper lateral and building sewer", and their construction "shall conform to applicable building and plumbing codes". Elk Grove's permit is section 12.08.020: "it is unlawful for any person to lay, construct or maintain any pipes, drain, or conduit across, along or on any street, road, highway, drainage feature or other public right-of-way in the City, or to make any excavation or cut or obstruction therein, without first obtaining an encroachment permit from the Director".
What to do: Establish first which length has failed. If it is the lower lateral - the part from the cleanout out to the main - it is the District's to repair and this permit does not arise. If it is the upper lateral, the encroachment permit comes from the City's Public Works Director where the work touches a street or right-of-way, and the City inspects it. If more than ten feet of the upper lateral is being replaced, ask the District about the cleanout it will require you to construct at your own cost, because that is settled before the trench closes rather than after.
Elk Grove Municipal Code section 12.08.020, Permit requiredWhy this matters
Knowing which body to ask is most of the difficulty here, and the answer is counter-intuitive: the District owns the pipe nearest the road and the City permits the work on the pipe nearest the house. So a contractor who rings the District about an upper-lateral repair will be sent back to the City, and the inspection that signs the work off is the City's too. The application is not a formality - section 12.08.020 requires the location, dimensions, purpose, extent and nature of the work, and an estimate of how long the excavation will exist - and the chapter carries a performance guarantee and refilling requirements behind it.
What this page cannot tell you
- No assistance or grant programme has been reviewed for this jurisdiction yet.
- No sewer service territory has been mapped for this area, so BelowGrid cannot say who serves an individual address.
Who governs and serves this area
- Jurisdiction
- Elk Grove (municipality)
- Sewer service
- No map of sewer providers is held here. BelowGrid cannot say which sewer provider serves an individual address.
How this compares to neighbouring cities
2 of the 4 nearest cities draw the line somewhere else. Each authority publishes only its own rule.
Nearby cities and further reading
Look up a specific address
This page describes what applies to properties in Elk Grove in general. To see which authorities serve one address, and what records exist for it, search for it.
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